Case study: Government IT Profession

With the advent of joined-up government and shared services, the IT skills strategy to support the government’s transformational agenda is today co-ordinated centrally by the Cabinet Office’s Delivery and Transformation Group.

Anne Waldron, who leads the Government IT Profession, which is one of the group’s key programmes and brings together all IT professionals working across the UK public sector, says now is a great time to be moving into the public sector.

‘Increasingly you will not be joining a large, single-silo organisation where you are likely to get lost,’ she says.

‘We have a growing community of professionals who work across government and that creates a huge amount of opportunity.’

Public sector IT comprises about 50,000 people across local and central government and other bodies, such as local authorities and emergency services. ‘Harnessing the power of that community so we can better share best practice and experience gives us a lot more ability to deliver and to ensure we are making the best use of skills and resources,’ she says.

Staff working in public sector IT today do not tend to work in an individual department, as was previously the case. Initiatives such as NHS Connecting for Health, the Olympics and the National Identity Scheme all require people to work together across departments, so IT specialists are required with experience of systems integration, programme management and project delivery.

Waldron says other in-demand skills include business change management, as well as general business and communication skills.

‘We have been increasingly focused on hiring people who can understand the needs of the business and articulate how the innovative use of technology can add value to the organisation,’ she says.

To find the right skills, the public sector recruits both internally and from the private sector. Waldron says some of the biggest and most complex initiatives in the world today are taking place in the UK public sector. ‘So we certainly want to continue to build on the strong skills base that we have already,’ she says. ‘But it is always good to get new ideas in – and we certainly have a lot to learn from the private sector and we want to continue to bring ideas and skills from all areas.’

Working with CIOs across the public sector, Waldron and her team are responsible for encouraging continual staff skills development through the adoption of SFIA, the Skills Framework for the Information Age.

‘We are also working closely with the ProfIT alliance, which comprises NCC, Intellect, e-Skills UK and the BCS,’ she says.

‘This gives our IT professionals the opportunity to be part of a broader community of suppliers and private-sector organisations. Building such relationships is particularly important given the lessons we can learn from the sector and because of the need to manage a growing number of partnerships and outsourcing arrangements.’

But while there is undoubtedly an increased demand for supplier management and general business skills in public sector IT, Waldron says there will always be a need for in-house technical expertise.

‘Obviously, within organisations that have outsourced most of their IT the opportunities will be fewer, but across the public sector as a whole there is still a requirement for people with deep technical experience – and in some really exciting areas,’ she says. ‘The security services are doing some very public IT recruitment at the moment, and Connecting for Health has also been looking for deep technical specialists.’

Attracting the right people is also becoming easier. Waldron says pay and reward is no longer the constraint it once was. ‘In terms of an overall package offering career development opportunities, flexibility and the ability to maintain a good quality of life, it is a great place to be,’ she says.

But perhaps the biggest attraction is the nature of the work itself, says Waldron.

‘The size, complexity and excitement of what we are doing is an amazing challenge. If you really want to deliver big things, the public sector is where it’s at,’ she says.

‘And it’s especially interesting because it involves things that affect us all as citizens. You have the opportunity to influence things that you read about in the papers every day and make a real difference.’